Joe Carter, Ledyard capture Small Division track title

Joe Carter captured a personal meet record in the 300-meter dash, and was a member of the Colonels’ record-setting 4x180 relay team. He spurred Ledyard to its first Small Division title and most likely, its last, for the time being. Ledyard ended the Wolverines’ three-year run, and eight of the last nine, atop ...

Ledyard junior Joe Carter came in with running shoes befitting his talent: A pair of neon green Nikes with gold bottoms.

So when he walked away with two Eastern Connecticut Conference indoor track championship records from the Coast Guard Academy on Saturday, one wonders: Was it the shoes?

“A little bit,” Carter replied with a laugh.

Carter captured a personal meet record in the 300-meter dash, and was a member of the Colonels’ record-setting 4x180 relay team. He spurred Ledyard to its first Small Division title and most likely, its last, for the time being. Ledyard ended the Wolverines’ three-year run, and eight of the last nine, atop the division with the 126-78 victory over Griswold.

The sweep eluded Ledyard, however. Plainfield scored a victory in the girls championship, 120-106, to end Griswold’s five-year stranglehold on that title.

The Colonels are going up to the Large Division next year, based on their enrollment.

“I have mixed emotions. When you move up to the Large, you have to have a big enough school to compete. The numbers make a big difference,” Ledyard coach Dave Tetlow said. “Unfortunately for us, we’re not going to have the numbers to do that. We’re going to be the smallest in that division ... and that’s the worst disparity in that (Large) division.”

Not everybody in the ECC Small will miss them.

“I’m certainly not complaining about them going back up to play with the big boys,” Griswold coach Chris Morth said. “Last year, we had a nice team and were able to beat them, but they just have too much. Too much talent, too many numbers for us to deal with long-term.”

Tetlow knew his relay team had a shot at the boys relay record, held by a Fitch foursome since 1990. Carter and seniors Alex Patterson, Steven Servedio and Alex Hintz-Valdez finished in 1 minute, 23.69 seconds, just .21 faster than the Fitch group.

“It stayed with them for over 20 years,” Carter said. “Our names might be up there for a very long time.”

The junior then finished second to Killingly’s Alex Mayo in the 55 dash before capturing his second ECC record in the 300.

“I wanted it extremely bad,” Carter said. “Knowing that you can come in and break two ECC records is just crazy. I just came out, did my best and ended up breaking both.”

Ledyard also got a first-place finish from Michael Lopes in the long jump.

Mayo didn’t do too bad, either.

The Killingly senior also set a personal record in the long jump, clearing 21-feet, 5.5 inches.

“I’m all set, I want to go home. I’m pretty beat,” Mayo said of his accomplishments.

Page 2 of 2 - St. Bernard freshman Connor Gralton echoed those sentiments. He won both the 1,000 and 1,600, and then almost got past Montville senior Jesse Joseph in the 3,200.

“The whole idea (Saturday) was that I was going to be the champion,” Joseph said. “(Gralton’s) a really great runner, I will give him that, and he’s got a promising future. But this is my year, my senior year. He’s not having it.”

Joseph edged out Gralton, who made a strong move on the bell lap, by .23 seconds.

Girls

Halfway through the girls championship meet, Ledyard was up by 27 points, but Plainfield coach Jeff Parkinson had prepared his Panthers for that earlier in the week.

“I told them not to listen to the scores (being announced over the public address), that it would be easy for them to kind of put themselves in a mental place where they wouldn’t be happy with where they are,” Parkinson said. “I told them Ledyard would score a ton of points early, and we would score a ton of points late.”

Parkinson’s prognostication proved apt. His Panthers pulled to within two points with three events left to go. One of them was a strength for Plainfield, the 3,200-meter.

Junior Kerri Ruffo was hurting for that race; she already had run the 1,000 and 1,600 and by the 12th lap, “I just wanted to quit because my stomach hurt so bad, but I knew I had to keep going.”

Ruffo stuck it out and finished first, with teammates Liz Larned on her heels and Kathryn Sanborn in fourth. The 22 points gave the Panthers the championship and satisfaction after they had lost to Griswold by 1.5 points last year.

“It wasn’t so much ending Griswold’s streak as much as just winning,” Parkinson said. “The past couple of years we’ve been close and the point and a half last year was a tough pill to swallow, so these girls really wanted it this year, worked hard and got it.”

Ledyard’s Chenoa Sebastian proved she was the fastest girl at the meet. She won both the 55 hurdles and 55 dash, almost back-to-back.

“It’s really awesome,” Sebastian said, “and I was running against my cousin (Plainfield’s Brianna Rocha) in the dash, so it was nice to win that.”

Sebastian finished just .2 seconds ahead of Rocha, but blew away the field in the hurdles, winning by more than a second.

“I just got off to a good start (in the hurdles) and I was tired after that, which made (the dash) more of a push,” Sebastian said.